PODCAST: 'Not on track' as hep elimination goal revealed as a mirage

1 December 2017

Hepatitis Victoria CEO Melanie Eagle attended the World Hepatitis Summit 2017 in Brazil recently and came back with some unsettling news.

In a new Hepatitis Victoria podcast interview, Melanie says that despite clear progress in countries like Egypt, China and Brazil, the world is clearly 'not on track' to reach the goal of eliminating viral hepatitis by 2030.

An estimated 1.4 million people died of hepatitis related diseases in 2016, a mournful total that is more than the number of deaths from HIV or tuberculosis.

'Unfortunately, we are not on track to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030,' Melanie says.

'There are still massive challenges often reflected by health system dysfunction and lack of resources...and even in Australia where we have had success with new Direct Acting Anti-viral drugs there is the slowing down of people commencing treatment for hep C, so there's much more to be done,' she says.

'There's no reason to be confident, and we have to think of new ways to progress the agenda of elimination.'